The present invention relates to a selection device for an elastic selector for needles in a circular knitting machine, particularly for knitting socks or the like.
Conventional circular knitting machines for manufacturing socks or the like have a cylinder that has a usually vertical axis and is affected by a plurality of longitudinal peripheral millings in which respective needles are mounted so that they can slide vertically.
The needles rest, in a downward region, on the top of respective selectors which can also move vertically and can be actuated by respective cam profiles to move upward or downward; in order to be able to modify the characteristics of the product being knitted, certain needles must be raised by a given extent with respect to the elevation at which they are located during the rotation of the cylinder and at specific angular positions.
This is achieved by installing on the machine, at said angular positions, appropriate selection devices which select which needles must be raised and which ones must instead continue in the lowered position.
These devices generally act on a selector that must be arranged at a specifically determined elevation in order to be affected by said device, and this is achieved by means of leveling cams which are arranged around the rotating cylinder, thus causing bulk problems.
Furthermore, most conventional devices select the selector by pressing it towards the inside of the cylinder, and this requires the presence of additional preselection cams that extract all the selectors in their seats towards the outside of the cylinder prior to actual selection, leading to a reduction in the angular portion that is available for selection due to the presence of said extraction cams.